Category: Oscar Nominee

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Christmas Under Fire (1941)

A war propaganda piece set during Christmas is a bit of an oddity, but that is exactly what this is. It proports to illustrate the resilience of the British people to celebrate the holidays with the reminders of war all around them. Despite my general dislike for war films, I do enjoy seeing how civilians adapt and carry on despite the destruction surrounding them. There is plenty of that in this short, but it is very heavy handed.   Holiday War

Oscar Nomination: Best Documentary

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How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable are three single models who rent a high class apartment in order to each snare a rich bachelor. The plan both succeeds and backfires beyond their wildest dreams. The film is shown in glorious Cinemascope which offers beautiful extended views of their swanky pad and other sets. It’s certainly a bit of cute, fluffy business, but the leads are all appealing in their roles. My only complaint is the dirty way the film handles William Powell. His character introduces the gals to his fellow oil barons, but in the end though he’s the most attractive, he’s considered ‘too old’ to actually win any of them in the end.

Oscar Nomination: Best Costume Design, Color

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The Salt of the Earth (2014)

Co-directed by his son, this documentary chronicles the career of photographer Sebastião Salgado. Trained as an economist, Salgado almost accidentally stumbled into his chosen career after his wife bought him a camera in Paris. After that moment, his work took him across the globe, photographing native tribes in South America, famine in Africa, and wars in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Filming the worst of humanity led him to begin work reforesting his native Brazil and a somewhat renewed career in wildlife photography. His photographs are beautiful, dramatic, stark, and real. I hadn’t been aware of the artist before and this documentary gives a close view into his life and work.

Oscar Nomination: Best Documentary, Feature

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Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

A sequel to the delightful 1995 film about the pig who learns to do the work of a sheepdog, here the farm is threatened after the farmer is injured while repairing a well pump, so the titular pig and the farmer’s wife set off together to a herding contest. The pair’s trip is waylaid when they are detained at the airport and they are forced instead to make their way in Metropolis. The charm and coziness of the original film are a bit lost here. Metropolis is a bizarre amalgam of all cities where the only hotel that accepts animals is housed by an orangutan, chimpanzees and a bevy of cats. It’s also much darker for what is ostensibly a family film. There are hangings, almost drownings, and dogs getting very close to the Rainbow Bridge. It’s very weird.  Animals

Oscar Nomination: Best Music, Original Song

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Alien³ (1992)

There is a bit of this Alien sequel that is set up to be a rehash of the previous two movies. Sigourney Weaver’s escape pod, which of course contains at least one alien, crash-lands onto a new locale. The rest of the heroes from Aliens are dead on arrival, so it again resets so that Sigourney is the only one who has knowledge and experience with the aliens and the evil Company’s desires to weaponize them. What makes this different is that the ship had landed on an all-male maximum-security prison colony and foundry. No more mothering instincts coming out in this version, instead Weaver has to fight off gang rapes and work twice as hard to prove she knows what she’s doing.  Scifi  Horror

Oscar Nomination: Best Effects, Visual Effects

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The Seven Little Foys (1955)

After his young wife dies, vaudevillian Bob Hope decides to incorporate his seven children into his act. It’s a pretty standard film biopic with a standard loose adherence to the real-life story. While appealing as a lead, Hope seems a bit old for the role. The narration is grating at times, but it is clever that the second oldest in the real Foy family was cast as the narrator. The most memorable bit in the whole film is a scene with James Cagney reprising his role as George M. Cohan. The two banter and dance well together as two veteran performers.

Oscar Nomination: Best Writing, Story and Screenplay

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Woman in the Dunes (1964)

When amateur entomologist Eiji Okada misses the last bus home after a beetle expedition, local villagers offer him board at a young woman’s cabin which sits on the bottom of a large sand dune. Unfortunately their hospitality masks ulterior motives. Initially, there’s quite a bit of privilege that Okada’s character holds in his situation. He can’t imagine this other way of living nor that people won’t rationalize things the same way he does. There’s a great claustrophobic atmosphere to the locale. The cabin is small and tightly packed with the dunes towering above, sand constantly trickling in at varying intervals.

Oscar Nominations: Best Director; Best Foreign Language Film

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Little Women (1994)

Yet another retelling of the story, this version is completely adequate and standard in almost all ways. Even though I’ve never read the story, I do find I have a general idea of what I consider a good portrayal for each woman. Here we have Trini Alvarado, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst as Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy respectively. A lot of these renditions make the birth order seem confusing as the Jo character overwhelms Meg as the oldest, and that is the case here. Beth is given short shrift and easy to forget she even exists, though Danes seems an odd choice of casting so that’s not the worst thing to have happened. It’s a bit interesting that Amy is a young girl at the beginning and later becomes an adult Samantha Mathis. I wouldn’t have thought that a transition between the two actresses would make sense, but it mostly works though Mathis isn’t quite as outgoing in her portrayal.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role; Best Costume Design; Best Music, Original Score

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The Damned (1969)

In the early days of the Nazi regime, the Essenbecks are a German family of rich and powerful industrialists whose members have differing loyalties to the new government. It is not long after the Reichstag fire before the conflicts within the family leads to intrigue and murder that happens in parallel to the violence happening in their own country. There’s a bit of a Shakespearean tragedy to the whole work, but told through a twistedly perverse lens. It’s an extremely excessive production from its lavish sets to its grotesque violence and even to its extra run time.

Oscar Nomination: Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced

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Road to Rio (1947)

Once again Bob Hope and Bing Crosby are musicians forced from locale to locale because of girl trouble. After burning down a circus, they stowaway on a ship to Brazil where they meet Dolores del Rio who is being hypnotized by her guardian. Again much hijinks ensue, especially when the duo is joined by the non-English speaking (for the movie) Wiere Brothers. One highlight of the film is the Andrews Sisters joining Bing in a performance. I’m not sure if I prefer this to Road to Bali, though it has a more linear story, the technicolor does enhance the experience in the other film. Also in comparison, this has the boys battling each other in a duel, but the other has them getting married, so it probably wins. I’m not sure why Bing seems to win in the end. I guess crooners really were the cat’s meow back then.   Comedy

Oscar Nomination: Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

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